Valery Bazarov

During the war the communication between about three million Jews in the US and their relatives in Eastern Europe stopped. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) made an arrangement with the German and Austrian occupation authorities to allow communication exchange between the occupied zone in Europe and the US relatives. By 1918, about 300,000 people used this opportunity including non-Jewish population. With the German submarines operating in the Atlantic Ocean, the Jews from Russia used a long way from Moscow via Siberia to China, then Japan crossing Pacific Ocean arriving to the West Coast of the US. HIAS opened offices in San Francisco and Seattle. After the Bolsheviks’ victory in Russia in 1917, the refugees in Yokohama became destitute when the currency was devaluated. HIAS intervened and succeeded. The presentation includes the case study related to this period.